Former national secretary of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Dr. Usman Bugaje, has expressed concern over Nigeria’s political trajectory, lamenting the absence of transformative ideas in national leadership.
Bugaje, a political activist and civil society leader, lamented the decline of visionary leadership, noting a shift from transformative ideas to personality-driven politics.
Speaking during an interview on ARISE News on Thursday, Bugaje said
“Our parties are completely empty. They have no content. They have no questions. They have no courage. They don’t represent anything.”
He added “What comes to mind when you look at the face of APC is the face of a person who has been caught on secret cameras, taking dollars and putting in his pocket… Therefore, we need to also look at the fact that the implication of all this is that we have left the politics of big ideas. We are basically stuck with the politics of big man.”
He expressed dismay at the performance of both the ruling and opposition parties, questioning the ideological depth of groups like the PDP and APC.
“Take the PDP. What does it represent? What idea, you know, is there any idea that you can actually relate to? The same with the APC—there is no particular policy, no particular developmental issue,” he said.
Bugaje dismissed the frequent framing of political discourse around regional lines, describing it as “nonsense.”
He emphasised, “This conversation about North and South is coming from the emptiness of our politics. The politicians have nothing to offer. If they have, then they put their ideas on the table.”
Reflecting on 25 years of Nigeria’s democracy, he painted a bleak picture of national development.
“The fact that 25 years of democracy has not delivered development… We are going down the drain. The country is getting poorer. Hunger, pain, disease, poverty is what is increasing. We must ask ourselves, what is wrong with the kind of democracy we’re running?”
Addressing the economic and security situation under the Tinubu administration, he remarked, “Whatever the criteria used, it is the feelings and the situation in which the ordinary people live that should be the final test. People are finding it difficult to eat. University teachers, civil servants, even people working in the bank—nobody’s salary can last him 10 days of the month.”
Bugaje concluded with a stark warning: “These two years of this administration have been very much like Buhari’s eight years. They have been a disaster for the citizens of this country… If they cannot fix this country, somebody might come to fix it. I hope we don’t go down like Somalia, like southern Sudan. But this is a very serious business.”
He called for the political elite and the media to focus on visionary ideas rather than ethnic divides or personalities, emphasising the urgent need for a leadership that can rescue the nation from its current path.
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